Just Another Brick in the Mall?

America has the highest per-capita amount of retail real estate of anywhere in the world. And with the digital world crashing the world of brick and mortar, a lot of “b” and “c” malls need major changes in their customer bases.

According to some analysts, over 400 of the country’s 1100 malls may close in the next few years. Fortunately, Adam Smith (with some help from Henry Ford), is quietly riding to the rescue. The WSJ had a story titled “The Mall of the Future Will Have No Stores” about the re-purposing of a Michigan mall into a combo traditional mall by re-configuring one of the major retail anchor spaces into significant engineering design center for Ford Motor Co. for almost 2,000 of employees. The key to all of the re-purposing around the country has been to add either office space or residential into the retail mix.

Nothing like a market evaporation to bring out the creativity. My bet is we are entering a new golden age of Malls and far from the headline of the “Mall of the Future Will Have No Stores”. Or as Henry Ford said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently”.